Reusing the previous wheel

The typical art requirements for a multiplayer game of real
substance can be large. In fact, typical RPG requirements are
enormous. Oncolos is planned to have at
least four major capital cities – one for each race, training zones, shops,
quests, and lots of combat in an open area.

All of that takes a lot of work by a lot of artists.

However, all those artists do not have to be working for
you, in fact, they can have finished working a long time ago.

For many years, most games have consistently reinvented the
wheel. Many developers create new game engines
when an engine that meets their needs is already available. And they can spend thousands of man-hours
creating artwork when art packs, 3D models, textures, and musical scores are available.

I do not have the luxury of hiring dozens of artists to
recreate grass, water, rain, and rocks.
Instead, to get to the goal of a working game with high production values,
I have decided to begin with existing artwork that is available for free and
can be used commercially. Then I can focus my artists' attentions on the unique features
of the game.

Several years ago the creators of the MMO Ryzom made all
their artwork free for use by the public, including commercial use. I intend to begin with that as a base for the
artwork in Oncolos, add several purchased Art Packs, and then turn my art team
loose on the key items that I want to make our game stand out.

By not wasting time on making dozens of 3D models of tables,
buckets, swords, and shields that
comprise most modern RPG style games I can substantially reduce the overall
requirements for the game. By utilizing
the thousands of textures in the Ryzom library I can begin with a consistent
set and focus my art people on items that would be distinct to the cultures of
the game world

Ambient audio, Music, and special effects are also available.

Oncolos will still have its own unique style, but we can expand the framework of the Ryzom style and bring the huge library of effort already created to our product in a new form.

So a major development burden is eased significantly, and
the chances of getting the project done on time move one step closer to completion.